| Sergej Garkusha - Liepaja, Latvia |
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Sergej was an activist in the communist movement. He studied at a technical school, joined the army, and served in the air force in Hungary. He married when he returned from the army in 1987, and his first son was born in 1988. Shortly after his second son was born, he lost his job, and experienced great financial hardship. He started making and selling alcohol out of his home, a business he and his wife were involved in together for several years. They both drank as well, and the alcohol brought a lot of difficulty into their lives. Their clientele came during all hours of the night, producing continuous disruptions.
There were times Sergej would attend Christian activities with his wife, and he enjoyed being with “those people.” He felt more and more at home with them. One night he had a dream, and he was teaching them something. The children were gathered around him, enjoying themselves. When he told this to his wife, she told him he was going to be a pastor. He told her she must be out of her mind! She said she knew, because God had told her. In the fall of 1996 an American evangelist was a guest speaker at the church, and after the sermon, Sergej repented and came to the Lord. He was soon baptized, and became active in a home study group, and the missions outreach ministry in his church. Eventually the church approached him about becoming a church planting missionary. He was working as a driver, with good potential. He and his wife talked and prayed about it, and arrived at the decision God was calling him to serve as a church planter. In the fall of 1999 he set out to plant a church in the impoverished area of town, in which he lived. He began making contacts with his prior alcohol clients, offering them the gospel. One other family began to gather at this house to pray and read the Bible. Then others began attending, including Igor and Alexy, two of his former clients. By winter, the group had grown to 12 people. They thought and prayed about starting a Sunday morning service, and two cold evenings in February they held prayer walks around their section of town. They stopped at every major building, police and residential, praying for the people they met. They also prayed for a potential meeting place, which God provided.
Sergej now has five boys, ranging in ages from a newborn to 18, and he and his wife live with them in a very simple two bedroom home. He continues to be burdened for the impoverished section of Leipaja, and is grateful for the EMI support which allows him to continue to minister in a region where unemployment hovers between 70-80%. In addition, it is anticipated Sergej will play a significant role in the CP-21 church planter training strategy now being implemented. |
Sergej was born in 1966, and raised in Leipaja, to parents from the Ukraine and Belarus. His parents were simple, blue collar workers who were not believers; they had openly rejected God. Easter and Christmas were only traditions to them; a nice meal with alcohol on the table. Sergej was raised in a home that followed the communist ideology. The person most revered by his family was “Uncle Lenin,” and the family motto was “Lenin lived, is alive, and will live.”
One day his wife found about a church and began attending the Sunday morning service regularly. She told him she had become a Christian, believing in Jesus. But he “just didn’t get it,” and became jealous, as she was spending so much time in the church and the Bible. This went on for two years. Seven women, including his wife, were praying for the salvation of their husbands, one each day. Today, most of those men have come to the Lord. 
In May of 2000 they began Sunday services. Sergej was at that time also attending the CP-21 training offered in Leipaja, which provided him with vision, strength, encouragement and practical guidance as he sought to pastor the new church. Sergej has now been ordained by and the church is a member of the Baptist Union, with about 45 people attending services each week. His vision and goal is to serve as an instrument to start other churches. In addition to a growing ministry to children and youth, Sergej has recently become burdened for the men in his community, and developed a strategy for reaching them. The past few months this new emphasis has born fruit.